“Just a few years ago I spent my days lying on a moldy mattress praying for death or an end to suffering, whichever came first.” Joey Lott suffered for decades from extreme anxiety, obsessions, compulsions, eating disorders... and spiritual seeking. And then, nearing the brink of death he stumbled upon something miraculous: the freedom he had long sought was to be found in the very experiences he had tried so desperately to avoid. This is a profound book—but with a lightness of touch that makes it reader-friendly. Part memoir, part take-no-prisoners immediacy, The Best Thing that Never Happened offers a unique and refreshing message—that you cannot be other than yourself. With the repeated instructions to meet what is already present, including what you most want to avoid, the author points you to the radical discovery of true freedom which is available for each of us in this very moment.

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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Born and raised in middle America, Joey Lott left university at the age of 19 to seek his fortune in California, where he became a software development prodigy in the dot-com world, overseeing the expansion into New England of the largest, privately-held advertising agency in the world. Becoming dissatisfied with the domineering and claustrophobic nature of corporate culture, he went on to set up his own consultancy which revolutionized the approach to the treatment of clients and employees alike. On a personal level, however, Joey had from an early age suffered from intense forms of anxiety. For decades he had lived with restrictive eating disorders, obsessions, compulsions and an inescapable sense of fear. Despite his attempts to find solace through psychedelic drugs, diet, philosophy, meditation and a variety of extreme practices and beliefs, by the age of 30 he was physically sick, emotionally volatile, and obsessed with keeping any and all unwanted thoughts and experiences at bay. By this point, he had given up his career and was living on a futon mattress in a tiny cabin in the woods, so sick that he could barely move. Too exhausted now to maintain his habitual forms of emotional self-defence, an insight awakened in him: he discovered that many hidden assumptions supported the sense of imprisonment that had so restricted his life. By investigating these assumptions and welcoming every experience that came his way, he began gradually to discover that in reality nothing was as he had imagined it to be. He discovered, in fact, that the true nature of life is unbounded and utterly free. In his own words: "The secret to happiness is to let go of everything - see through every assumption." Joey now lives with his family in New Mexico, USA.

Your true nature is not "you." Neither is it other than you. It is not the "Witness." It's not your True Self, or a Big Self that subsumes your small self. Your true nature is the true nature of everything. You don't have to do anything to be it; nothing you could do would make you other than it. You can't mess it up or tarnish or stain it. You've never been apart from it. In order to recognize it, you have only to stop adding "yourself" to it. To even refer to this most fundamental of realities as "it" or to call it anything at all is to risk reducing it to a concept and thereby missing it.

Nothing you can do will lead to this. Nothing you can do or not do will lead you away from this. No amount of meditative attainment or achievement will get you any closer or any further away. The very act of doing or intending anything is something you are adding to this moment; when you are actively doing something, even something so seemingly innocuous as investigating your experience, you are "compounding" or adding something extra to your experience. Surrender now.

I'd read plenty of Advaita books prior to this one, so I didn't expect to find anything new here. I'd also read (and greatly benefitted from) 4 of Joey Lott's prior books, so I REALLY didn't expect to find anything new here. But the reviews were soooo good, so I read a sample on my Kindle, and the sample was so appealing I purchased the book right away. Turns out I was wrong - the contents of this book were new in the sense that Joey's voice is so fresh and alive. Down-to-earth, honest, real, laugh-out-loud funny at times, daring, no-nonsense, unpretentious, and generous are the descriptors that immediately come to mind. Extremely enjoyable and resonant book. Joey himself appears to be a fountain bubbling over, splashing this way and that, calling "home" anyone who cares to listen.

I like Joey's down to earth discussions of a topic that has taken on so much unnecessary complication over the history of humankind. He uses traditional techniques though not from a traditional point of view but from an everyday point of view. He encourages a lot of questioning like in Madhyamaka but he makes it very personal. He never gives us instruction on how to see things the way he does; no meditation (though he has practiced meditation), no yoga (though again he knows about that).One thing that I tie this in with is a Radiolab program which connects thinking with having a language. Without language thinking is not anything like we normally experience (at least that seemed to be the gist of the story). Also in meditation there is some relief from thinking. I'm really curious to understand this better. But Joey does not discuss thinking but instead suggests looking intently at what we take for granted - that which comes before thinking - not just the story.

With razor-sharp clarity and wry humor, Joey Lott shares how he zaps the false ideas that cause confusion and suffering. Especially helpful to me is the way he teaches dropping conceptual thinking... inviting the reader to notice the difference when a concept is completely dropped. Something about how he says this resonated within and a big light bulb went off. Thanks, Joey!

It's also much fun and quite helpful to hear tales from Joey's crazy life story, which this reader took in the spirit of teaching that even a roller-coaster train-wreck of a life has no negative value once the Truth is seen.

This is the second book by Joey Lott that I have read, the first was "You're Trying Too Hard." I was curious after reading the first one as it pointed to something that felt very familiar and close. As a Nyingma practitioner I realized how similar Mr. Lotts view is to the instant realization of pure awareness pointed to in the Dzogchen/Atiyoga teachings which discuss instant rather than a gradual approach to being.

I would highly recommend this and really any of Joey Lotts books to everyone following any gradual path or finding themselves a little lost in the cultural trappings of the Eastern teachings. I am not saying to give up any of your practices if they seem to help or make you happy but these books can certainly clarify and point very directly to the very thing you may be looking for, especially when you learn there is no need to search as it is really all there is.

You will not attain anything by reading this book, you won't fix anything in your life circumstances. But if you follow what Joey relentlessly points to, the simplicity of being or direct experience, you may discover that the 'you' that was seemingly there to attain and fix things was just an assumption that we all tend to suffer through. His writing is clear, to the point, and his directness in language is vital to a reader like myself who tends toward always seeking for something else. I feel very grateful for the chance to read this book and finally, finally welcome the aspects of what is that previously seemed so frightening.

When you're exhausted from looking everywhere else, this book offers a simple, wonderful resting place. It seems to be a challenge for any author to convey the utter simplicity of dropping the quest for attainment and just being intimate with ones experience, but Joey Lott brings the message home very well, and without unnecessary complexity.